As usual, parents and mentors are willing to step up to support our team and 5190 Roboboosters. We had two vacant positions on our Board and we are very pleased to welcome Ms. Neelu Sikka to our Board as Treasurer. She has been a dedicated supporter of Green Hope Robotics FRC5190 from day one. She was instrumental in maintaining all our finances during our very short window to finance the team's trip to St. Louis in the team's rookie season. Her son Ausvin is an Engineering Leader.

We also welcome Mrs. Alzira Williams as Secretary. Another ardent supporter of FRC5190 from day one, Ms. Williams has been a business operations mentor this year and has volunteered at FLL Events where FRC5190 Team Members including her son, Devin demonstrated our robot, Mosquito, from last year.

We thank them for their volunteerism, look forward to their first Executive meeting, officially accepting them on the Board and building our 5190 Roboboosters Club with an eye toward a super successful season that celebrates the hardworking students of the Green Hope Robotics Team and their incredible coaches, Mr. Sanjay Khanna and Mr. Amir Maleki.

Supporting these students and their team and helping them achieve their goal of getting to the FIRST World Championships in St. Louis again this year will be our great privilege.

We are very excited to announce that 5190 Roboboosters, Inc. has achieved 501(c)(3) status through our membership in ParentBooster.org. This new designation will enable us to fundraise in a more effective and efficient manner. This is good news for STEM Education in our community. Joining the ParentBooster USA Organization made perfect sense. The organization offers many resources for booster clubs like ours and provides the umbrella designation to us as a 501(c)(3) non-profit.

We have always been a non-profit corporation in North Carolina, but did not have the Federal tax-exempt designation as a 501(c)(3) which is required to accept tax-deductible donations. Prior to achieving this new status, our donors were required to make gifts to NC First and then the gifts were re-granted to us. Now the gifts can come directly to us. This allows the generous gifts made by our donors to go to work right away in helping us promote STEM Education. We will even be eligible to recoup any North Carolina sales tax that we pay when purchasing our parts for our robots.

Very soon, we will have a Paypal account for donors to make donations directly to us. We can also now accept donations in kind for goods and services. Additionally, we can accept donations at our mailing address:5190 Roboboosters, Inc.307 Belrose DriveCary, NC 27513

Thanks for your support during our transition. We feel this news is like "hitting the big time"!